Obama fails statesmanship test in Honduras crisis

July 1, 4:34 PMOrlando Republican ExaminerBlas Padrino

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“You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses,” goes the old Clarke Van Ness song. In the case of the Honduras constitutional crisis, President Obama has chosen to lie in the gutter next to the most anti-democratic Latin American rulers, when he should have walked away, like the respectable pig of the song.
I have been covering the removal of Mel Zelaya from the Honduran presidency since the matter unfolded on Monday. President Obama’s initial, knee-jerk reaction consisted of labeling the actions by the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court as illegal and called it a military coup-d’état. His statements can only be attributed to a complete ignorance of the facts or a fawning desire to take sides with the far left clique of Latin American rulers led by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. After three days, the U.S. President finds himself boxed into a corner and on the road to being embarrassed for a third time with respect to his Latin American policy.
The events leading to the removal of Mr. Zelaya from the Honduran presidency are clear. Only ignorance of the facts, extreme naiveté, blind obsequiousness toward Mr. Obama, or willful deceit can justify the Administration’s interpretation. In an astounding example of bias, the mainstream press keeps parroting the Chavez version of the facts. Moreover, given the current political reality, it is absurd to expect that Mr. Zelaya will be returned to his post, except through foreign military intervention.
To understand the Honduran situation, one must read that country’s Constitution. With respect to the powers of the President and the process for his removal, it does not differ much from our own. The starting point lies in Title VII, Chapter I, Article 373 of that document, which states that any constitutional amendment must be decreed by two-thirds vote of the National Congress in two consecutive ordinary terms. Furthermore, it states in the next Article that the constitutionally prescribed four-year term limit for any president cannot be changed. In violation of those provisions, Mel Zelaya called for a referendum to change the term limits as his own term in office was coming to a close. Under Title I, Chapter I, Article 4 of the Constitution, anyone who attempts to change the term limit provision is guilty of the crime of treason. Mr. Zelaya’s illegal referendum was nothing more than an ill-conceived attempt to keep himself in power, no different from what Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela.
The Honduran Attorney General, an independent official, ruled the referendum illegal and the matter was brought before the Honduran Supreme Court, which also ruled it against the Constitution and outside the powers of the presidency. The Court precluded Mr. Zelaya from using public funds to carry it out. At that point, Hugo Chavez intervened in the affair, caused the referendum ballots to be printed by the Venezuelan government and flew them into Honduras. Mr. Zelaya then ordered the Armed Forces Chief to organize the referendum, set up polling places and distribute the ballots. Once again, the Supreme Court entered an order prohibiting the Armed Forces from participating in Mr. Zelaya’s illegal sham. When the Armed forces Chief refused to violate the Supreme Court order, Mr. Zelaya fired him, again in further violation of the Constitution. Title I, Chapter X, Article 279 of that document states that the Armed Forces Chief is named by the Congress and can only be fired by the Congress. The Supreme Court declared Mr. Zelaya’s action invalid and restored the Army Chief.
Finally, the Honduran Congress took up the matter of the removal of Mr. Zelaya from the Presidency in accordance with its powers under Title V, Chapter I, Article 205, paragraph 15, which authorizes the Congress to bring up charges against the President. By unanimous vote of the Representatives, including the members of Zelaya’s party, who constitute a majority of the legislative body, he was removed. Beyond his shameless disregard for the Constitution and of the Legislative and Judicial branches of the government, Mr. Zelaya was cited for failing to submit to the Legislature a budget that was due since September 15 of last year. In effect, he had been spending public funds for nine months without accounting for their use.
Mr. Zelaya was removed by the Armed Forces, but under the orders of the Supreme Court, as provided in Title VI, Chapter XII, Article 313 of the Constitution. Unlike what happens in a coup-d’état, the Honduran military has not assumed control of the government. The current President, Roberto Micheletti, also a member of Mr. Zelaya’s own political party, was the President of the Honduran Congress, and the appropriate constitutional successor when a President is removed.
This chain of events creates a problem for Mr. Obama’s insistence that Mel Zelaya be restored to the Honduran presidency. Given all the steps taken by the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court to comply with their legal norms, how can those be constitutionally erased? But an even more significant question is: how can Mr. Zelaya govern effectively after the way he has broken the law while in office? Realistically, if he returned to Honduras the law requires that he be arrested and prosecuted. At this point, the Honduran authorities, with overwhelming popular support, remain adamant about doing just that if Mel Zelaya sets foot in the country. All the bravado from the Secretary General of the Organization of American States and the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador, who said they would accompany Zelaya back to Honduras today turned out to be just that. The OAS’ new threat is to suspend Honduras from the organization if the government does not take Zelaya back in three days. This is nothing more than a recognition of that body’s impotence to effect a change. Moreover, other leaders, such as Colombia's Uribe have stated their opposition to any intervention in Honduras' affairs.
The question for Mr. Obama is what benefit is there in disrupting our drug interdiction program and alienating the people of Honduras in order to prop up an unpopular lame-duck-no-longer-President? After all, Honduras will hold elections in November and, whoever wins will take office in January. The message will be that Honduras’ democratic institutions worked as they were supposed, much to the chagrin of the real Latin American despots who wanted to install their friend Zelaya as dictator.
(Above right: Hondurans demonstrate against Zelaya's return. Above left: Honduras' President Roberto Micheletti.)

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